Pakistan movement: Freedom struggle: Religious groups oppose the Pakistan demand
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Why did religious groups oppose the Pakistan demand?
Dr Syed Jaffar Ahmad
For the students of modern Indian History, it has remained, since long, a curious exercise to understand the paradox as to why a country that was apparently created in the name of religion was so vehemently criticized by the religious class. Pakistan’s demand received attacks from other quarters too, for instance, the united Indian nationalist platform, but the criticism by the religious groups, hailing from almost all schools of thought, raises fundamental questions about the Muslim League’s claim of being the representative of the Indian Muslims.
The understanding of this conflict is important not only from academic point of view but also for determining the legitimacy of the religious organizations in laying claims on Pakistan. In the last sixty years, the religo-political organizations of the country have persistently claimed that Pakistan was created as a laboratory of Islam, in order to practise in this country an Islamic system authenticated and approved by them. This claim has been questioned by those who see a clear contradiction in these organizations’ pre- and post-independence positions.
In order to comprehend the nature of this conflict, it is important to see into League’s own credentials to speak about Islam and to find out what type of an Islamic society it had in mind.
It is also important to see what League’s concept of Muslim nationalism stood for, and whether it had the same connotation as carried by other groups and individuals who spoke about Muslim Qaumiyat (nationality) interchangeably with Muslim Millah and Ummah. It might also help to figure out the social class interests operating behind the Muslim League’s politics.
Equally important would be to see how the religious groups who had opposed the Muslim League viewed the place of Islam in India, what they held regarding Muslim nationalism as propounded in India, and how they looked at the League and its leadership and why did they have reservations about the League’s program. Among the religious detractors of the League, there were influential individuals –
scholars, ulema, orators, etc. – as well as organizations. From among the individuals, the attack against League and its leader varied from person to person ranging from criticism of League’s once pro-British stance, Jinnah’s western lifestyle, his personal and familial life (even the conversion of his wife to Islam which was doubtful for some of them), and his own religious sect.
As against these individual reactions, the religo-political groups and their leadership had more concerted and apparently strong criticism of the League and Jinnah. The criticism of the Muslim League, its leadership and programme, by the ulema belonging to the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-i-Hind (JUH) and the founder of Jama’t-i-Islami, Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Mawdudi was more serious both in substance and articulation. They raised important questions about the efficacy and ingenuity of the League’s platform and program, and also tried to suggest alternate means to resolve the issue of the Muslims’ place in future India. Though their understanding of what League was trying to do, was rather misplaced given their own limited traditional outlook of viewing and judging things, it would, perhaps, be unfair to caste doubts about their intentions.
Synthesizing the criticism of the religious organizations, spread over at least quarter of a century, (roughly between 1920 to 1947), one can identify four major inter-related areas of contention between the religious organizations and the League. First, their respective positions towards the British rule; second, the issue of commitment and sincerity to Islam; third, their positions regarding Muslim qaumiyat (nationalism) and muttahida qaumiyat (united Indian nationalism); and finally, their position on a separate Muslim state.
Regarding the Muslim League, it is all too well known that it emerged in 1906 as a socio-political group of the Muslim elite who organized themselves to be able to accrue maximum possible advantage from the impending constitutional reforms to be introduced by the British government. League’s initial feudal character changed from 1913 onwards when a segment of urban-based Muslim intelligentsia was also attracted to it, though this segment also preferred to work within the legal framework made available by the British rule. In that respect, League was not much different from the Congres which all along strived for reforms through a piece-meal process avoiding a radical path.
After 1937, Muslim League tried to make itself acceptable for the Muslim public employing both the means of addressing more common socioeconomic problems and making appeal to Islamic sentiments.
The mobilization created by the Khilafat Movement also came to serve the League in its mass contacts during the 1930s and 1940s. Its bargaining position with the government as well as its claim of representing Muslim India got a boost in the aftermath of the Second World War, when involving the League in constitutional parlays became important for the British government.
The 1940 Lahore Resolution and the subsequent events created political environment where League earned for itself the position of being the sole representative of the Muslims. It was this position of strength from which the League launched with much force its demand for Pakistan. League’s claim for the Muslims to be a distinct nation came after Jinnah’s efforts in bridging the gap between the Hindu and Muslim communities through political and constitutional devices were frustrated given the stubborn attitude of Congres and other organizations.
Jinnah’s claim of Muslims being a separate nation accompanied with reference to the Muslim majority areas, came closer to the idea of territorial nationalism. Jinnah’ s demand for the right for self-determination for this Muslim nation was well- timed as the principle of nation’s right to self-determination had already been accepted and was quite in vogue at the international level.
While proclaiming nationhood of the Muslims, Jinnah was in fact invoking a modern idea of his times. He had invoked a cultural identity of a group of people to serve as the basis of its nationhood in the context of a given situation. It was an instrumentalist approach, squarely opposite to the primordialist interpretation of nationalism wherein a nation is presumed to be a given entity that exists independent of time and space.
That the context of the contest determines which identity of a group would serve its interests best, in the case of India, the religious identity of the Muslims was regarded as a relevant basis for their group formation and self-assertion. With the change in context, upon independence, Jinnah lost no time in proclaiming a Pakistani nationhood, as the new context had demanded.
The religious organizations could not appreciate Jinnah’s concept of nationhood and questioned his credentials to speak about the Muslims. The most prominent among the critics of Jinnah and the Muslim League was Jamiat-ul-Ulma-e-Hind (JUH), an organization that was founded in 1919, amidst the popular uprising created by the Khilafat movement.
Motivated by ulema of Deoband, JUH was vehemently opposed to the British rule. Some of its founders had undergone difficult trials and had suffered due to their opposition to the British policies. Sheikh-ul-Hind Maulana Mahmood Hasan and others had served long imprisonments. As in the political domain, the major concern of the JUH was to bring an end to the British rule, its entire thinking and program was geared to that end. It tried to mobilize the Muslims of India in the name of Islam, passed verdict against the British rule proclaiming it to be kufr (infidelity), and decreed all those services, including the one in British army, which directly benefited the British government, to be haram (forbidden) for the Muslims. Similarly, it advocated unity of ranks within India since the ulema belonging to it strongly held that the Muslims alone could not undo the British rule.
They thought that the Muslims, Hindus and other communities should unite for independence despite their cultural and religious differences. The record of the speeches delivered in the annual sessions of the JUH as well as the writings of its ulema suggest that they used the term qaum for the Muslims and Hindus suggesting that they regarded these as distinct nations.
However, the JUH also thought that these nations were part of a wider whole, that is, India which offered another sphere of unity and collective identity. These ulema often referred to instances where different religious groups and nationalities shared a wider common nationhood of a country. As they were of the view that British rule could not be removed unless this united nationhood of India was emphasized at, their position about the distinctiveness of the Muslims was often overshadowed.
The JUH projected this Indian nationhood as being in the interest of the Muslims. For example, Hussain Ahmed Madni thought that the united Indian nationhood was important for Muslims from religious point of view as well, as according to him, the Muslim could be more influential in India and being in good size and influential in India they could be in a position to support the neighbouring Muslim countries.
The JUH opposed a separate country for the Muslims on the ground that it would deprive the Indian Muslims of their strength. It also charged the League of toeing the British policies, and cited the League’s 1906 objectives which included the objective of ensuring Muslim loyalty to the British rule, even though it had revised its constitution thereafter. JUH was also opposed to Jinnah and charged him of betraying the Islamic causes by not supporting the legislation on what it considered as the shariah proposals.
JUH was in the forefront against the Muslim League after it passed the Lahore Resolution and moved ahead with the idea of a separate Muslim homeland. However, it was during this period that a small group, under Maulana Shabbir Ahmed Usmani, dissociated itself with the JUH in 1945 and supported the Pakistan demand.
The other critique from the religious quarters to the League and its founder came from Maulana Sayyid Abul A’la Mawdudi, the founder of Jamat-i-Islami. As against the anti-colonial and anti-British thrust of the JUH, Mawdudi was more concerned about what he regarded as the heterodox and immoral practices within the Muslim community. He devoted his writings to look into the causes why the Muslims had deviated from Islam which to him was a complete code of life and offered distinct political, economic, and social systems.
He denounced all other philosophies for being unjust and inadequate to fulfill human needs. To Mawdudi, the Muslims, for whom he preferred the term Jama’a (party or a group), even though later he accepted to use for them the term qaum too, had the religious responsibility to establish the supremacy of Allah over the entire world. But for this the Muslims had to become true Muslims.
In his famous series of articles, Musalman Aur Mojooda Siyasi Kashmakash (Muslims and the present political conflict), published later in three volumes, he differentiated between the true and genuine Muslims from the rest. For the former he used the term Aqali Musalman (Muslims by conviction), while the latter were designated as Nasli Musalman (ethnic Muslims). Mawdudi thought that it would not matter much if a Muslim ‘qaum’ with the majority of it being Muslims only in name was bestowed with a separate country, for there as well they would have the same ways.
He strongly criticized the Muslim League and its leadership which to him were pre-dominantly ethnic Muslims who had gathered a crowd of similar Muslims around them and were seeking a separate homeland for them.
As the League’s concept of Muslim nationhood comprising all the Muslims was squarely opposite to that of Mawdudi, he did not support it. Not only this, Mawdudi also thought that even the partition of India was not necessary and the Muslims could pursue the pristine mission of establishing Allah’s supremacy as well as ensure their religio-political rights within Indian framework. Only a year before the coming into being of Pakistan, he wrote in an article, Hindustan ki mojooda guththi ka aik hal (A solution of India’s present dilemma), published in Nawa-e-Waqt, Lahore, in its issue of 1 May, 1946, that the Musalman Hindustan ki taqseem par na marain (Muslims should not die for India’s partition), for Hindustan ki taqseem kay bajaay Hindustan ki wahdat Musalmanoon kay liay ziyada mufeed sabit ho gi (India’s unity, rather than India’s partition, would be more useful for the Muslims).
He also suggested that a better solution for India’s communal problem would be to make it a federation of different cultural entities having complete autonomy. The federal centre should itself be designed on the basis of cultural representation. The decisions of the federation should be taken by agreement of all the federating (cultural) units. In case of difference on an issue, a referendum should be held on it. In case, one cultural entity, or a vast majority of it, did not approve a proposal, it should be deemed rejected.
As the above shows, the actual difference between the religious groups and the Muslim League was centered around the concept of nationhood and whether a separate country was inevitable for the Muslims of India. League’s concept of nationhood employing the religious symbols of the Muslims, irrespective of their being good or bad, for defining their collectivity and building them into a group as well as bringing in the element of territory to strengthen the claims of this nationhood, was in tune with the modern ethno-national ideas of statehood.
Moreover, Jinnah’s approach to nationhood was more of an instrumentalist nature – he was pursuing a course and constructing a nationhood in a particular political context. It was due to this reason that in a changed context, upon the creation of Pakistan, he did not find it difficult to cultivate the idea of Pakistani nationhood, suggesting, in his 11 August 1947 speech, that ‘If you change your past and work together in a spirit that everyone of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his colour, caste, or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this state.
With equal rights, privileges and obligations, there will be no end to the progress you will make’. He further said, ‘… we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of this state.’ Conscious of the socio-political dynamics which give shape to political claims – claim of nationhood being one – Jinnah moved to build a Pakistani nationhood as it was essential to make the new country a nation state.
What was rather easy for Jinnah, proved difficult for the traditional religious leadership which has remained entangled in resolving the contradiction of the Muslim nation and the Pakistani nation in Pakistan.
